'Dancing' solicitor jailed for theft

Torkoniak combined his legal duties with Cossack dancing

A former solicitor who claimed he was too busy Cossack dancing to have stolen thousands of pounds from clients has been jailed for eight years.

Dymtryo Torkoniak, a 36-year-old Ukrainian, said other staff at his legal firm carried out the embezzlements as he concentrated on securing appearances with Kylie Minogue and Ali G for his international dance troupe.

Torkoniak, of Huntingdon Drive, Nottingham, claimed he had combined his daily legal duties with nightly appearances on stage.

But Lincoln Crown Court heard that Torkoniak siphoned off funds from personal injury claims and the estates of the deceased, and overcharged for Legal Aid.

Stole from priest

He was convicted of 14 counts of theft totalling about £333,421, four charges of obtaining property by deception, one count of false accounting, one of forgery and one of perjury.

The court heard he put the money into offshore bonds and bank accounts and bought two impressive homes.

The former solicitor chose his victims from the Ukrainian community in Derby because they were unfamiliar with English law and the language, the court heard.

You abused your position to line your own pockets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds Judge Jonathan Teare

Judge Jonathan Teare said the father-of-three had even stolen from his godfather and the priest who christened his children.

He had claimed during a seven-week trial that he was an entertainment impresario and was too busy to carry out the frauds between 1996 and 2001.

Judge Teare told him: "You abused your position to line your own pockets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"You deceived the vulnerable, the injured, the disadvantaged, two people with little command of English and in three cases, the estates of the dead."

'Unparalleled wickedness'

One of his clients, Steven Buckley, was awarded £100,000 compensation after he fell from a girder at a construction site and injured his ankle, but received just £18,000.

"This was an act of unparalleled wickedness, you stole from a physical and mental cripple - it is tantamount to stealing the clothes off a beggar's back," the judge said.

Jurors were told Torkoniak, who had been a senior partner in three firms during his career, destroyed bundles of documents relating to his clients before police raided his business premises and home.

Torkoniak, who dresses in Armani suits and has a collection of handmade Italian leather shoes, was earlier cleared of one charge of the theft of £800 from a personal injury client.